Answer
Answer:
As-Salamu ‘Alaykum sister,
Your feelings as an advocate are very common. Often those, who are involved in advocating for the rights of other people, animals, the environment and so forth, experience pain and anguish at various points in their advocacy. I am not sure how long you have been involved or at what intensity, but it is clear that it is affecting your emotions and how you perceive other things.
As we reflect upon “where is Allah’s (swt) help”, you may want to look in the mirror as well as into the faces of other activists who try to help animals. Many people have dedicated their lives or part of their lives to a specific cause that touches their hearts. For you it is animals. What a blessed heart you have, indeed!
To illustrate the importance and mercy Allah (swt) has for those who help animals, we can refer to two separate hadiths narrated by Abu Hurayrah, “the father of the kitten”. The Prophet (saw) told his Companions of the virtue of saving the life of a dog by giving it water and quenching its thirst. One referred to was a man who was blessed by Allah (swt) for giving water to a thirsty dog. The other was a prostitute who filled her shoe with water and gave it to a dog that was lolling its tongue in thirst. For this deed, she was granted the ultimate reward: eternal Paradise.
As you can see, Allah (swt) has such mercy for animals that even a prostitute gained Jannah for filling her shoe with water and giving it to a dog. On the other hand, Al-Bukhari and Muslim reported a hadith regarding a woman who locked up a cat, refusing to feed it and not releasing it so that it could feed itself. Prophet Muhammad (saw) said that her punishment on the Day of Judgment will be torture and Hell.
So, you can see the two different outcomes Allah (swt) has in regards to treatment of animals. As people are given the opportunity to either follow Allah’s (swt) guidance and laws or not, it is up to them. You cannot change that course; it is already written. However, through your work in animal advocacy, this is a good opportunity to teach others (who are open to listening) about how Allah (swt) instructs us to care for animals. You never know whose heart Allah (swt) will choose to touch and fill with the light and love of Him, hence become a better person and more cognizant of how they treat others and animals.
I would suggest starting in our Muslim community. Perhaps, you can begin by giving a presentation to a group of sisters or designing leaflets to disperse in the Muslim communities regarding animal rights and the message of the Qur’an regarding the treatment of animals.
By involving the support of the Muslim community and sisters, in particular, this may help to fortify you as well as to relieve some of the helplessness, anger, and depression you have been experiencing. By sharing our passions for helping with other Muslims, who share our same values, the knowledge of Allah (swt), and the mercy and compassion, we often learn new things in regards to Islam, suffering, and ramifications of abuse. You may find that you are growing more as an advocate and a Muslim which, in turn, will be an additional benefit to the animals you are already helping.
In the world of activism, there often begins to develop a tendency to feel angry and/or depressed about those things we cannot change. If internalized and not dealt with, it can cause burn-out which, dear sister, is what I surmise you are experiencing.
I had a period in my life wherein I also became burned out and depressed, when I cried a lot, felt hopeless, and generally asked Allah (swt) “Why.” A few years ago, a group of sisters and I sat up for almost 25 days to edit and upload pictures of the most horrific bombings and incursions upon innocent children and people that we had ever seen. We had several friends who lived there working as a journalist. Between the bombings, they would run from car to car charging up their laptops to get the news and pictures to us. Then, we would edit and put them on social media sites to “wake up the world” to this atrocity. At day 10, one sister just sat and wept. We comforted her and encouraged her to go off “duty”, spend time with family and do and see positive things which she did. At day 18, it was my turn. I sat there feeling hopeless and wept after getting another horrific picture and email to edit. I feared that one of our friends was dead. The sisters were very comforting and it was my time to “take time out”. While none of us wanted to do this, we knew we needed to, because if we hadn’t, we would have become too overwhelmed and therefore of no use to anyone as our emotions took over.
I ask you to evaluate your life in regards to advocacy. Do you have other interests? Do you do other things? Do you take care of yourself? I encourage you to have a balance in your life, have other things that capture your interest and attention that are fun, enjoyable, and soothing. Possibly engage in nature hikes, go out to lunch with friends, go to Islamic events, read Qur’an, participate in a sport or a creative endeavor. All these things will give you a better grasp on what you are feeling and going through. Also, by strengthening our relationship with Allah (swt) and by adding balance to our lives, we naturally become more capable of handling the “ugly” things that are sadly part of this life.
Sister, I would like to suggest that you attend a support group for people who are advocates and are feeling burned out or depressed. As you live in the USA, there are many options for you to do so. I would suggest signing up with the website “Meet Ups” and look through their groups in your area for animal rights activists’ support groups or any activist support group for that matter as the burnout symptoms are pretty much the same. This will help you feel connected through which we can begin to heal as well as learn with others that we chose to help. We may not like what we cannot change in this world, but we accept it and yet still do our best to make a difference.
Stephen Kaufman, MD, (Burnout among Animal Activists) stated: “Humans are products of nature. Our senses and even our kind of consciousness evolved to deal with the challenges of survival in a natural world, filled with challenges and opportunities raised by other humans, non-human animals, and the environment. If we find ourselves alienated from other living beings and nature in general, we become disconnected to our creative ground of being. Our culture has encouraged people to take an exploitative and destructive attitude towards nonhuman existence (and much human existence as well), and this has left people feeling alone in the Universe, a loneliness the human psyche (terrified, as it is, by the specter of death) cannot stand.”
By strengthening our connection with the highest, Allah (swt), as well as others, we can begin our journey towards generating healthy feelings like choosing how to react rather than let our emotions control us. In effect, we can become more at peace within ourselves with the deeds we are doing to help Allah’s (swt) creations.
Please let us know how you’re doing your most important work. You are in our prayers.
Salam,
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